"Carolina Shout" - James P. Johnson

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The intent of this video is for non profit Historic Preservation, Education and social comment.


Carolina Shout played by the composer James P. Johnson
(originally issued on QRS 100999 / ca. February 1921)

James Price Johnson [A.K.A. "Jimmy Johnson"] (February 1, 1894November 17, 1955) was an African-American pianist and composer. He's one of the greatest of all piano roll artists.
For more information on James P. Johnson, I recommend the writeup in Rags & Ragtime (Jasen & Tichenor) and the book James P. Johnson (Brown & Hilbert); also see Tom Davin's 1955 interview with JPJ in Jazz Panorama (Martin Williams, ed.) (see BluesTone Recommended Reading list)

Stride, also known as New York ragtime, is a jazz piano style where the pianist's left hand may play a four-beat pulse with a bass note or tenth interval on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats, or an interrupted bass with three single notes and then a chord while the right hand plays melodies, riffs and often contrapuntal lines. The name "stride" comes from the left-hand movement "striding" up and down the keyboard. Pedal technique further varies the left hand sound.[citation needed]

The technique was originated in Harlem during World War I by Luckey Roberts and James P. Johnson. It was partially influenced by ragtime but as a jazz piano idiom, features improvisation, blue notes, and swing rhythms which its predecessor did not. The practitioners of this style practised a very full jazz piano style that made use of classical devices. They sometimes engaged in cutting contests to show off their skill.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• carolina shout
• harlem stride
• jazz
• James P. Johnson
• piano roll
• qrs
• 1920's
• 20's
• new york

[98MrsShannon]

Please, what type piano roll, e.g. ampico, duo art, welt mignon or pianola?

[lindyhoppers]

@98MrsShannon

just a regular QRS piano roll, see here cataogue

qrsmusic.com

[leantext]

Nice post and nice writeup. High quality befitting the master. Nothing wrong with piano rolls--just another way of recording, no less legitimate than cutting wax. Please post more.

[lindyhoppers]

@leantext

I would post more but I do not have enough photos of JPJ to fit three mins of another song :-(

[bimbo4746]

piano roll or not its great  still tappin my toes you go roll or not yeaaaaaa

[lindyhoppers]

@bimbo4746

glad you're enjoying it!

yeaaa

[inkontinentius]

Can't imagine that this piece of music is from 1921...absolute awesome, thanks for the good quality

[nicodagger]

Fantastic sound quality!! A rarity on Y.T. Thanks!!

[ohaiduhg]

Immediately, Super Mario Bros 2 came to my head.

[KawhackitaRag]

@GeoHunt1 I do not consider piano rolls a "recording medium" in the true sense, but certainly they are all very important documents in that they record the musical attitudes and pianistic thoughts of the time in a clear, no-nonsense manner in a piece of paper. Even if the roll was totally arranged (no original performance involved whatsoever), the roll still is an important illustration of how certain good musicians back in the old days would interpret and embellish a piece of music.

[KawhackitaRag]

@KawhackitaRag To finish up, I extend an open invitation to the surviving family members of ANY pianist (well-known or not, recorded or not, and who made rolls, or not), who was active in popular music during the 1910s and 1920s. If you have any home-made recordings, manuscripts, diaries, photos, or even simply an anecdote or two, I would love to hear from you! I am working on a couple of books about popular pianists from the 1910s and 1920s and need all the information I can get!

[KawhackitaRag]

@KawhackitaRag Interestingly, I have no idea if any other rolls by other artists were similarly influential on the development of other pianists of the day. This information is not in any of the books I've seen. I would love to know, for example, the early musical influences of Victor Arden, Mike Loscalzo, Harry Geise, and dozens of other pianists, but since they're all deceased and I was never able to interview them, we may never know. [...]

[KawhackitaRag]

I hasten to add though, that although he was not one of the most PROLIFIC roll artists, James P. Johnson was one of the most INFLUENTIAL. His piano rolls are demonstrably known to have been influential on the musical development of such pianists as James Blythe, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and Clarence Johnson (probably among many others).

[KawhackitaRag]

@GeoHunt1 With all due respect, (and I hate to add this to a video where I've already posted a series of comments), James P. Johnson did not make "more piano rolls than anyone else". According to one estimate, he is known to have made about 55 rolls, give or take a few. While this is certainly a respectable number, it is a drop in the bucket compared to such titans of the piano roll as Victor Arden, Mary E. Brown, J. Lawrence Cook, Rudy Erlebach, and Frank Milne, each of whom made over 1000.

[KawhackitaRag]

So, to sum up all of this, this is a fine example of a QRS piano roll, (and a reasonable, and fairly sensitive for the time, transliteration of what Johnson played), it is by no means a performance. By playing the roll on a well-restored, tuned, and voiced foot-pumped player piano, and adding dynamics by hand and foot (using the usual hand controls and foot pedals), a person creates more of a "performance" than the roll does playing automatically without expression!

[KawhackitaRag]

@KawhackitaRag [...] The arranger, (who was not J. Lawrence Cook by Mr. Cook's own testimony, but may have been Victor Arden), took Mr. Johnson's performance, represented by the lines on the long piece of paper, and visually "read" it (keeping in mind what he had probably heard first-hand in the QRS recording studio), simultaneously simplifying somewhat what are actually quite subtle changes in rhythm that Johnson makes into the standard "house rhythm" scale, which still sounds quite good here!

[KawhackitaRag]

@youtoobsignupsucks James P. Johnson's 1921 Okeh audio recording of "Carolina Shout" is probably the best early document their is, because it is absolutely him playing live on a piano, no monkey business. With the roll, Johnson played the QRS "marking piano" (which incidentally still exists and is on display in a museum) which made lines on a blank roll of paper. [...]